


Sing Me To Sleep

by sunsetveins



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Good Boyfriend Alec Lightwood, M/M, Simon Lewis & Alec Lightwood Friendship, Singing, Sleepy Magnus Bane, alec also thinks he sings to magnus while magnus sleeps, alec sings magnus to sleep, alec writes his own songs, because alec writing is everything to me, endless fluff really, it's how he and simon bond, it's mentioned - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-15
Updated: 2018-04-15
Packaged: 2019-04-23 00:40:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14320671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunsetveins/pseuds/sunsetveins
Summary: “Magnus?” he whispers, smiling when he receives a quiet hum in response. “Can I sing to you?”orthree times Alec sings Magnus to sleep





	Sing Me To Sleep

**Author's Note:**

> I listened to If I Could Fly and got a malec feel from it so this happened 
> 
> It's implied that Alec wrote If I Could Fly and I Get To Love You. The first song is How Long Will I Love You.

1:

 

After Magnus switches bodies with Valentine, he starts having nightmares more often than not. Alec doesn’t know how to help him until the night he tells him about his stepfather. 

They’re laying in bed and Alec’s fingers are tangled in Magnus’ hair. It’s quiet, and Magnus is considerably less tense than he had previously been. It eases the weight that Alec had been carrying around on his shoulders, the weight of the constant worry he held for Magnus’ wellbeing. It still isn’t enough, but it seems like it will have to do. That is, until he gets a text from Isabelle.

It’s only a text telling him goodnight. She sends one every night that he spends in the loft instead of the Institute, but this one gives him an idea. 

“Magnus?” he whispers, smiling when he receives a quiet hum in response. “Can I sing to you?”

“You want to sing to me?” Magnus asks, rolling until his head is comfortably placed on Alec’s chest. He stares up at Alec with curious golden eyes. 

“Yeah,” Alec nods, continuing to run his fingers through Magnus’ hair. “I used to sing Izzy to sleep when she was a baby. She had nightmares sometimes, and it helped her sleep through the night. I don’t know. I thought maybe it might help?” 

He avoids Magnus’ eyes, already regretting having asked at all. His heart sinks when Magnus muffles his laugh into Alec’s chest.

“Oh, darling. You’re very sweet. Of course you can sing to me.” 

Alec looks down, mouth open in surprise. “Really?”

“Really,” Magnus confirms, smiling softly. “I’d love it.”

“Okay.” Alec closes his eyes briefly before looking at Magnus again. “I really hope it helps,” he says, leaning so that he can press a kiss to Magnus’ head.

“I’ll love it anyway,” Magnus assures, closing his eyes and clicking his fingers. The lights shut off and Alec takes a deep breath. 

_“How long will I love you?”_ he sings, quiet and soft. _“As long as stars are above you, and longer if I can.”_

He hums for just a moment, closing his own eyes and allowing his fingers to card through Magnus’ hair on autopilot. _“How long will I need you? As long as the seasons need to follow their plan.”_

Alec can feel Magnus’ smile against his skin. It might be his favorite feeling in the world so far.

 _“How long will I be with you?”_ Alec pauses, swallowing the sudden lump in his throat. _“As long as the sea is bound to wash up on the sand.”_

_“How long will I want you? As long as you want me to, and longer if I may.”_

“Forever, then,” Magnus mumbles. Alec grins. 

_“How long will I hold you?”_ he pauses again, this time trying to find another way to word the lyrics. He instead hums, presses a kiss to Magnus’ head again, and skips a line. _“As long as I can.”_

 _“How long will I give to you? As long as I live through you, as long as you say,”_ he whispers the last half, not wanting to face it or force Magnus to. Magnus doesn’t seem to notice, his breath evening out and his muscles loosening as he relaxes into Alec’s hold.

_“How long will I love you? As long as stars are above you, and longer if I may.”_

He taps on Magnus’ shoulder experimentally, smiling softly when the warlock barely reacts with more than a slight huff. 

_“How long will I love you, as long as stars are above you,”_ Alec finishes, staring up at the dark ceiling. “I’ll love you for an eternity if you’ll let me, Magnus. I swear it.” 

Magnus only tightens his grip on Alec, showing no signs of having heard Alec at all. Alec smiles, hopeful that maybe Magnus will be able to sleep through the night, and lets himself fall asleep, too. 

 

-

 

2:

 

It becomes a routine for Alec to sing Magnus to sleep. What Alec doesn’t tell Magnus is that sometimes he keeps singing long after he’s already asleep. 

There’s something calming about it that Alec can’t quite explain. It brings him peace. There’s no pressure when Magnus is asleep on his chest, safe from the stress and the pain that the real world brings, and he can tell him everything he’s ever wanted to with no consequences. 

So Alec sings to him even after he’s asleep. He sings, and sometimes he whispers confessions that he isn’t ready to say quite yet, but needs to let out somehow. He even sings fragments of his very own songs, the ones that he writes in a notebook he keeps locked in the desk drawer in his office. Those occasions are few and far between, because he’s paranoid that Magnus will wake up and hear his words, and that maybe he won’t like them. Alec isn’t sure if he could bear it, because every single song is about Magnus. 

He gets brave some nights, though. Tonight is one of those nights.

 _“If I could fly, I’d be coming right back home to you,”_ Alec starts, singing in nothing more than a whisper. _“I think I might give up everything, just ask me to.”_

There was once a time when Alec was terrified of the idea that he’d have to give up everything for Magnus. He wasn’t ready to. He believed that his career was far more important than Magnus and what he symbolized. That Alec and the man he is now are so different that sometimes he can’t believe they were ever the same person. He wouldn’t trade the happiness he has with Magnus for anything the world could ever offer him. 

_“Pay attention, I hope that you listen, cause I let my guard down,”_ Alec sings, fingers tracing patterns on Magnus’ bare back. _“Right now I’m completely defenseless.”_

_“For your eyes only, I’ll show you my heart. For when you’re lonely, and forget who you are. I’m missing half of me when we’re apart.”_

Alec misses the way Magnus shifts, just ever so slightly, and blinks his eyes open. 

_“I’ve got scars, even though they can’t always be seen. And pain gets hard, but now you’re here and I don’t feel a thing.”_ Alec’s voice cracks near the end, and his eyes are burning when he attempts to blink the tears away. He jumps when Magnus’ arm tightens around him. 

“You’re awake?” he chokes out, meeting Magnus’ eyes as his boyfriend shifts until they’re level with each other. 

“I am. Why are you crying, darling?” Magnus asks, reaching over to brush his thumb over Alec’s cheek. Alec sits up and scrubs at his eyes. 

“I don’t know,” he says. His hands are shaking when he pulls them away from his face and settles them in his lap. 

“You do,” Magnus replies, tone gentle as he sits up and reaches for one of Alec’s hands. “You can tell me, Alexander.”

“I just,” Alec breathes deeply, shaking his head and clenching his eyes shut, “I wrote this song for you, and it hurts. I love you, and it’s so hard to let you see me, but that’s what the song is for. It hurts to sing, because it’s important.” 

Magnus shakes his head, smiling as he lifts Alec’s hand to his lips and presses a brief kiss to the back, “Is that why you only sing it when you think I’m asleep? Because it’s important, and you’re scared?” 

Alec’s breath hitches. “You’ve heard me before?”

“Nearly every time, darling. It’s soothing. I love listening to you sing. You only keep going if you think I’m asleep.”

“Oh.” 

Alec thinks of every personal thing he’s ever sang to Magnus while under the illusion that he was asleep, and he’s mildly horrified, but at the same time he’s relieved. Magnus has heard nearly all of his inner thoughts and he hasn’t run away. Magnus likes to hear him sing. He stays awake just to listen. 

“Is that why you sleep so late? Because you sit up and listen to me?” Alec teases, grinning at Magnus as his boyfriend looks down at his lap and fidgets. “That’s the opposite of my goal, Magnus! It’s supposed to help you sleep!”

“And it does,” Magnus insists. “I sleep wonderfully afterwards.”

Alec laughs, shaking his head and smiling so widely that it feels like his face might just become stuck. “I can’t believe you, Magnus,” he admonishes jokingly. 

“What? I can’t believe you, Alexander! You were going to keep those lovely songs all to yourself and leave me deprived for the rest of our lives. I thought you loved me!”

The joking mood slips away as Alec’s smile turns soft. He squeezes Magnus’ hand and reaches for the other one, lacing them together as well as he shifts so they’re cross legged in front of each other. “I do love you, sweetheart,” he says quietly. “Every song is about you, and how much I love you, and how I never want to be without you.” 

“I love you, too, Alexander,” Magnus whispers. He tilts his head, then, and asks, “When did you start writing songs?”

“A few months ago. I had to go stay with Simon for a couple of hours one day, because of a mission the others were on, and he started talking about this performance he had coming up,” Alec says, lacking the usual fond annoyance in his tone that normally accompanies a story involving Simon.

“Somehow he got onto the topic of songwriting, and he showed me some of the stuff he was working on. He told me that every song he writes comes from his heart, because they’re all about something that’s important to him. He writes about friendship because of Clary, because she’s important to him. He writes about the Downworld because it’s his home now, and that’s important to him. He writes about love, because love gets you through life, and that’s the most important lesson he’s ever learned. Something about the idea of that stuck with me, and I decided to try. All I ever wanted to write about is you, because I love you, and you’re the most important thing in my life. You’re my heart, and that’s where every song I write comes from.”

Magnus stares at Alec, and he’s not quite sure what to say to that. He hadn’t been expecting it, which is his own fault when he thinks about it. He doesn’t know how he isn’t used to the raw honesty present in every answer Alec has ever given him, but he hopes he never is. The awe never becomes an old feeling. 

“Was that too much?” Alec asks after a minute, doubt beginning to seep into his mind. He tenses visibly, beginning to pull his hands out of Magnus’.

Magnus tightens his grip and shakes his head. “No, darling. Nothing is ever too much when it comes to you,” he assures. “You just simply never fail to leave me in awe.”

“Good thing?” Alec asks, relaxing. 

“Wonderful thing,” Magnus says, smiling and pulling Alec forward by his hands. He comes willingly, and Magnus kisses him. It’s slow, and gets interrupted a few times by their smiles, but Alec loves every second. 

Their hands untangle, and Alec eases Magnus onto his back. They keep kissing, never straying from the slow and steady rhythm they’d begun. Magnus’ hands reach for Alec’s neck, pushing his face back just so until their eyes lock. 

“I love you,” Magnus says, breathless and every beautiful thing that Alec has ever known. If there is anything more beautiful than Magnus Bane out there, Alec would be surprised. 

“I love you, too, kitten,” Alec replies with a grin as he presses a kiss underneath Magnus’ right eye, and then his left. The only response he gets is the narrowing of golden eyes and Magnus’ disapproving frown.

 

-

 

3:

 

“Sing to me, Alexander?”

It’s a night routine now. Every night, instead of asking if Alec is ready to sleep or climbing in bed with him when he arrives home late because of a client and going to sleep, Magnus asks Alec to sing to him. It never fails to cause Alec’s heart to race and his face to break into a smile.

“Come here,” Alec says, opening his arms. He’s been in bed for an hour and a half now, waiting for Magnus to get home from his visit with Catarina. 

Magnus crawls on the bed and places himself in Alec’s arms. He rests his head on Alec’s chest and throws his arm over Alec’s stomach. If he didn’t know that Alec would use that truly awful nickname, he might’ve started purring when Alec’s fingers started running through his hair. 

_“One look at you,”_ Alec sings, smiling when Magnus drums his fingers against his side, _“my whole life falls in line. I prayed for you, before I called you mine.”_

 _“Oh, I can’t believe it’s true sometimes,”_ Magnus mumbles before Alec can continue. 

Alec smiles and twirls a strand of Magnus’ hair around his finger, whispering, _“Oh, I can’t believe it’s true. I get to love you. It’s the best thing that I’ll ever do.”_

 _“I get to love you,”_ Magnus murmurs. He presses a kiss to Alec’s chest. _“It’s a promise I’m making to you.”_

 _“Whatever may come, your heart I will choose,”_ Alec sings quietly. _“Forever I’m yours, forever I do.”_

He lifts Magnus’ hand and presses a kiss to the ring finger, just below the engagement ring he’d put there nearly a month ago.

Alec hums the next two lines, pressing exaggerated kisses to Magnus’ knuckles as he did so, causing Magnus to laugh.

 _“The way you love,”_ he sings, kissing Magnus’ hand one last time before laying it down, _“it changes who I am. I am undone, and I thank the angel once again.”_

 _“I get to love you,”_ Magnus sings back, looking up at Alec with a tired smile. _“It’s the best thing that I’ll ever do.”_

“Hey,” Alec frowns, narrowing his eyes playfully. “That’s my line.”

“It’s our song,” Magnus retorts, closing his eyes. 

“I suppose it is. It’s still my line. I wrote it.”

“Shut up and sing me to sleep, Alexander,” Magnus says, opening his eyes once again to reveal annoyed cat eyes. 

_“Soft kitty, warm kitty, little ball of fur,”_ Alec sings, grinning when Magnus groans and buries his head in Alec’s neck. _“Happy kitty, sleepy kitty, purr, purr, purr.”_

“I hate you,” Magnus mumbles. 

Alec laughs, closing his eyes as he presses a kiss to Magnus’ head, “I love you, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> hope you liked it :)


End file.
